Off to a good start - my 2024 reads so far

Last year, I restored my reading habits of old, and shared the 50+ books that I read.

I’m off to a good start to 2024, with 14 books read, and most of them having been worth the investment.

5 Fiction Books

Must Read

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Worth the Effort

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Find something else to do

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

• A Sport and a Pastime by Jamie Salter

Yes, I really did just read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. Having not grown up in America, it wasn’t a rite of passage in school, and I just never got there. Probably should have. Seminal stuff.

Half of a Yellow Sun told a story of a world that I am unfamiliar with - Nigeria in the time of civil war in the late 1960’s. What was really heartbreaking and harrowing, however, was the damning realization that in so many ways we still have failed to progress. Far too many passages from the book could be written about what is going on in the world today. Plus ça change.

Oscar Wao was the disappointment. Perhaps I’m overreacting to not caring for Diaz’s style. I felt that there was a meaningful story being told, but in an up and down book I was instead drawn more to the asides and the notes than to the main narrative.

5 Non-Fiction Sports Books

Must Read

• AB: The Autobiography by AB De Villiers

Worth the Effort

• Gentlemen and Sledgers by Rob Smyth

• 10 for 10 by Chris Waters

• Second XI: Cricket in its outposts by Tim Wigmore & Peter Miller

• Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution by Freddie Wilde & Tim Wigmore

16 years ago I wrote that I wanted to be AB De Villiers when I grew up, and although I am committed to my agnostic atheism (which is apparently a thing that is different from what I mean it to be, oh well!), it was great to get a little more insight into what made the man who he was.

If you know who Hedley Verity is, then pick up 10 for 10 as well. Great to read about someone whose story is not often told.

4 Other Non-Fiction Books

Must Read

• Pathogenesis by Jonathan Kennedy

• Evicted by Matthew Desmond

• Transformed by Marty Cagan

Worth the Effort

• Financial Intelligence by Karen Berman & Joe Knight

Pathogenesis was great. Not only did I learn a few things that I’ve already forgotten about how pathogens have shaped our existence, but Kennedy also found time to hammer home a few hard truths. I particularly enjoyed his noting that William Wilberforce wasn’t a saint (waiting for people to realize this about Churchill too), and floating the idea that at least in part, the abolition of slavery by the British was a trade restriction aimed at salvaging the institution of slavery elsewhere. Certainly food for thought!

Evicted is just heartbreakingly real, and leaves you almost in despair at the system that we have created that perpetuates a vicious cycle for those who are less fortunate.

Transformed - well Marty Cagan just nailed it with this one. I do tend to align with him on a lot, and this book just said so many of the things that I like to think and say, except with coherence and cogence.